"Lawyer Nichols' fire," he muttered as he hurried along. "Surely they do not mean to accuse me of that!"
The sudden recollection of the threatening letter he had sent glanced across and smote, as with the stroke of a dagger, upon his brain. "Good God! to what have I exposed myself?"
His agitation was excessive; and at the instant the constables, who had been to his home in search of him, turned the corner of a path, a few paces ahead, and came full upon him. In his confusion and terror he turned to flee, but so weakly and irresolutely, that he was almost immediately overtaken and secured.
"I would not have believed this of you, Edward Lovegrove," exclaimed the constable.
"Believed what?" ejaculated the bewildered man.
"That you would have tried to revenge yourself on Lawyer Nichols by such a base, dastardly trick. But it's not my business to reproach you, and the less you say the better. Come along."
As they passed on toward the magistrate's house, an eager and curious crowd gradually collected and accompanied them; and just as they reached Digby Hall, a distant convulsive scream, and his name frantically pronounced by a voice which the prisoner but too well recognized, told him that his wife had heard of his capture, and was hurrying to join him. He drew back, but his captors urged him impatiently on; the hall-door was slammed in the faces of the crowd, and he found himself in the presence of the magistrate and the elder Nichols.
The attorney, who appeared to be strongly agitated, deposed in substance that the prisoner had been seen by his son near his premises a few minutes before the fire burst out; that he had abused and assaulted young Mr. Nichols but a few hours previously in the market at Christchurch; and that he had himself received a threatening letter, which he now produced, only two days before, and which he believed to be in the prisoner's handwriting—
The prisoner, bewildered by terror, eagerly denied that he wrote the letter.
This unfortunate denial was easily disposed of, by the production, by the constable, of a half sheet of letter-paper found in the cottage, the ragged edge of which precisely fitted that of the letter. Edward Lovegrove would have been fully committed at once, but that the magistrate thought it desirable that the deposition of Arthur Nichols should be first formally taken. This course was reluctantly acquiesced in by the prosecutor, and the prisoner was remanded to the next day.